Unboxing

We received a total of seven ships for our review, one interceptor each for the Earth Exploration Fleet (Humans) and Vitruvian Sovereignty (Aliens) and five ships of the Astivar Collective (cyborgs), which will be unlocked once the Kickstarter hits its initial target value.

We’ll start with a look at the sprues, beginning with the four different Astivar ships..

The EEF Interceptor…

The Vitruvian Interceptor…

As you can see on the sprues, the models are once again manufactured by Prodos Games. They have already created the 15mm marines and mechs for White Dragon’s first Kickstarter, which worked out fine and without delays.

Some of the models back then had problems with fragile or hollow bits, but the spaceships were much better in that regard (probably due to the fact that they don’t have as many thin parts).

Our test models had a few small air bubbles, but those were pretty insignificant. There was only one bigger issue with an engine of one of the Astivar ships (first sprue picture above). This was however the only miscast of that kind.

Assembling The Squadron

The models were really easy to build, which was mostly due to the fact that there weren’t many parts to begin with. Only the machine guns of the EEF interceptor were a bit fiddly, but fast bonding super glue helped a lot. Unfortunately we only took pictures of the Astivar ships here…

All the parts went together nicely, quickly and without problems. After a few minutes all ships were finished and ready to paint.

Painting The Models

Since we had some time after Salute we took the opportunity to paint the models as well. Let’s start with the Astivar Collective…

For everybody who’s interested, here are some little step by step instructions.

Basecoat with Modelmates light grey

Add shades with Vallejo dark grey (airbrush)

Wash with thinned down Army Painter Dark Tone

Highlight with Vallejo Cold Grey (airbrush)

Highlight with Vallejo Stonewall Grey (airbrush)

Light drybrush with Vallejo Stonewall Grey

Highlight with Vallejo White (airbrush)

Add deeper shades with Army Painter Dark Tone (selected areas)

Paint and highlight green cables

After that I added the hex pattern (shield effect), using stencils by Anarchy Models. The plan was easy, I simply wanted to spray one layer of GW Scorpion Green and be done with it, but that didn’t work out as planned.

There simply wasn’t enough contrast and everything looked quite dull. To improve the effect, I emphasised the green dots with a brush, but this still didn’t do the trick. I therefore added white lines between the hexes and this finally led to the result I had hoped for.

For the EEF interceptor I went with dark grey and black, with some red stripes (using masking tape). For a more dramatic look I also added muzzle flash bits by Anvil Industry to the engines..

The last ship to paint was the Vitruvian Interceptor…

Here I simply used bright blue and white, with lots of red glow-effects.

Scale Of The Ships

Some people asked us right from the start how the ships scale up against X-Wing models, and therefore we did of course also take a comparison pic. In addition we also grabbed some old Aeronautica Imperials ships from the cabinet.

We think they’re looking rather good!

Verdict

The models were huge fun both to build and to paint. Some of the mould canals could have been placed a bit better, but in the end everything worked out really well. There were next to no mould lines and all details were crisp and easy to make out.

Due to this great quality the price per ship is more than justified, and the squadron deals even offer an additional discount. Definitely worth a look for all Sci-Fi fans!

Understandable, Prodos always cause strong emotions. To be fair though, the number of resin casters is limited (Prodos work for dozens of Kickstarters…) and since Prodos alread did the casting for the last WDM Kickstarter which worked well, I understand why they didn’t change anything here.

Which is why as soon as I know a company is involved with prodos (panzerfaust etc.) I will not buy any of that companies products, I think prodos is an unethical company and although I understand why companies use them I do not wish to support prodos financially in any way.

this looks at first glance to be a more sophisticated game than x-wing.

my main games are infinity & star wars rpg. but after the force awakens I had to find time and money to squeeze some x-wing and armada into my life because I couldn’t have my scifi fun after that without starships . then dropfleet hits kickstarter and now this. man even if I had more money I wouldn’t have the time for an extra system. i’m at saturation point so I would have to move x-wing on to bring in shattered void . I may do that if this picks up pace. but there are only a couple of hundred backers right now. picking up game systems is getting complicated these days. I want to see the industry evolving but I hope it slows down soon or my head will explode.

Times have definitely become more difficult for new games and KS isn’t the almighty tool it used to be. But after seeing the models I’m really excited and also managed to win some people at my local club over. So far we have about 5 players here, all joined the KS (the 2-player set is a really great deal for that).

I think WDM really deserve a success, there’s so much work and dedication in this project. Also: I simply love spaceships.

Oh, I don’t doubt that. KS is huge. But I keep an eye an most wargaming campaigns (job wise) and it seems to me that especially smaller campaigns more often barely reach their funding goal, while the big players make all the money nowadays. Cool Mini or Not made 3.5 million with Massive Darkness, so KS really isn’t dead, but many campaigns by smaller projects (for example Manorhouse Workshop or Armoured Syndicate) only managed to get very few stretch goals (and that’s not counting the campaigns that were stopped).

The larger campaigns are a little down on the same period last year despite the overall total being up. KS has never been so good for small campaigns as it is now, and it increases year on year. Like I say, not only is more money being raised by small campaigns, but more small campaigns are getting funded.